More women are turning to artificial insemination by donor (AID) as a method of conceiving a child. And not just lesbians. A study carried out in Perth last year showed that heterosexual women also were having babies by this method.

The main reason was that they wanted to rear a child, or children, without any interference from a father. They were independent women who sought the freedom to do things in their own way, and AID provided the solution. There was no contact with the father, no custody claims, no child-rearing clashes, visitation rights or any conflict whatsoever. Legally, he simply did not exist.1

Apparently, these “independent women” are so determined to avoid “any interference from a father” that they are prepared to be artificially inseminated like cows. There can hardly be a stronger rejection of fathers and fatherhood than that!

In some feminist and sociological circles there is talk about the New Father model. The whole thrust of this model is to strip fathers of all masculine characteristics so they will be just like mothers. New Father visionaries “grimace about maleness”. They want fathers to be androgynous, genderless. They want to redefine fatherhood so that it is indistinguishable from motherhood. Indeed, they speak of “co-ed mothering”; and ask earnestly, “Can a man and a woman mother together?” At heart, they believe that “there is nothing special about a father, that there are no fundamental tasks in family life that are properly and necessarily his work.” Consequently, it hardly matters whether fathers stick around or not. But if they do, they had better behave like mothers, or else!2